Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (May 29/98) - As Inuvik days loop around the clock, residents will have lots of daylight hours to sneak a glance at the town's newest testament to national pride.

In a town graced with several NWT flags and even polar bear flags, the Finto Hotel has set a stiff challenge with the erection of the largest flag North of 60, Canadian or otherwise.

Will any other business attempt to better it?

What is more likely is Inuvik will become known for more than its igloo-shaped Church and its decorative row houses, but also for its big Finto flag.

Spurring much needed tourist dollars, Inuvik could be billed internationally as the flag capital of the North.

"It could be a tourist attraction," admits Finto Hotel co-owner Harald Wulf. "You can see it all the way out to Shell Lake, six kilometres away."

Wulf first hoisted the mammoth 6-by-12 metre emblem about a month ago after special-ordering it from Calgary, he says, but because one of the seams appeared to be separating, he lowered it to re-stich it.

Now flapping in the mosquito-thwarting breeze, Wulf says the symbol will help instill local pride with the already keen sense of national spirit Inuvik is already known to show.

"Canadians are a very patriotic people," says Wulf who first arrived in Inuvik in 1970 after leaving his native Germany.

"You need a big flag up there. I've had other ones but they seemed very Mickey Mouse."

Part of the inspiration for the flag came as Wulf watched, via television, a huge 1995 pro-Canada demonstration preceding the most recent Quebec referendum on independence.

He still gushes as he describes the one flag held as a kind of centrepiece by dozens of people in downtown Montreal.

In Inuvik, Wulf has done his part by flying different flags, alternating sometimes to the American or NWT flag. He has even had a few flagpoles to show an array.

Now, however, flags on nearby poles or more than the one flag on the same pole would only detract from the big flag's impressive nature.

On May 16, Wulf hoisted the 31 kilogram flag up the 24-metre flagpole for a second attempt to get it to stay up as long as the Inuvik summer sun.

He adds how one more advantage such a big flag provides is if anyone tried to steal it, they would not only need a very long ladder, but enough tools to make enough noise to alert anyone within the likely six-kilometre sight-radius.